Manage Family Sharing settings

Who can leave a Family Sharing group?

The ability to change or leave a Family Sharing group varies.

• An organiser can leave a Family Sharing group by turning off Family Sharing. When Family Sharing is turned off, all family members are removed from the family group at once. If there are children under 13 in the family group, the organiser must transfer them to another Family Sharing group. Family members will no longer be able to share access to subscriptions, purchases and other services enabled through Family Sharing.

• Any family member over the age of 13 can remove themselves from a family group at any time. Just select your name and then select Leave Family. You can also sign in to the Apple Account website and choose Remove Account in the Family Sharing section.

• For security reasons, a child (under 13) can’t remove their account from a family and can’t stop sharing details such as Screen Time without the Screen Time passcode. The organiser has access to shared family content on your device, such as shared photo albums and shared calendars, and can view Screen Time activity.

Types of Family Sharing members

Members of a Family Sharing group can have different roles depending on their age.

To change your Family Sharing status, it’s good to know how the different roles within Family Sharing groups work.

• Organiser: An adult who sets up a Family Sharing group. The organiser can invite family members, remove family members and disband the group.

• Adult: A member of the Family Sharing group who’s 18 or older.

• Parent/Guardian: An adult member of the Family Sharing group who can help manage parental controls for children in the group. When the organiser adds an adult to the Family Sharing group, they can designate them as a parent or guardian.

• Child or teen: A member of the Family Sharing group under the age of 18. The organiser, parent or guardian can create an Apple Account for a child who’s too young to create their own.

In your household, one adult (the family organiser) chooses the features the family shares and invites up to five additional members to join. After the invitations are accepted, Family Sharing is set up on everyone’s devices automatically — including a shared calendar and shared photo album. The family organiser can add anyone who has an Apple Account to their family and remove anyone over the age of 13 from the family group.

What happens when you leave a Family Sharing group

If a member is removed or leaves the Family Sharing group, they keep purchases paid for using the shared credit card but they immediately lose access to other things the family members share:

• Former family members’ device locations don’t appear in the Find My app on iCloud.com or on the Mac, iPhone or iPad.

• Former family members’ items no longer appear in the Purchased section of the iTunes Store, the App Store and Apple Books.

• Music, movies, TV shows, books and apps previously downloaded are no longer usable if someone else originally purchased them. Former family members can no longer use this content downloaded from your collection.

• In-app purchases become unavailable if they were purchased using an app someone else originally purchased. You can regain access to the in-app purchases by purchasing the app.